


Colours

by Amythe3lder



Series: Irregular Pieces [26]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, F/M, Gen, Irlen Lenses, M/M, Mention of torture, Molly Does Her Research, Multi, Mygolly, sensory processing disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 09:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4600836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amythe3lder/pseuds/Amythe3lder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Prompt: Glasses</strong><br/>Mycroft saw everything all at once in a constant barrage of input, pain he couldn’t bear to turn away from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intensitycity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intensitycity/gifts).



> This touches on chapter 9 of _Happiness Shared_ , but comes out around chapter 22.  
> I drew a line  
> I drew a line for you  
> Oh what a thing to do  
> And it was all yellow  
> Your skin  
> Oh yeah your skin and bones  
> Turn into something beautiful  
> And you know  
> For you I'd bleed myself dry  
> For you I'd bleed myself dry  
> "Yellow"-Coldplay

The world was a bright place. Mycroft saw everything all at once in a constant barrage of input, pain he couldn’t bear to turn away from.

When he was a boy, eye contact was too near an intimacy. It remained so for years. If colours were noisy, this was sonic interference: liable to cause an almost audible screech from the strangeness of looking into a gaze that saw him as a foreign element. Foremost, it had been this pursed-lip curiosity about what others perceived of him that sent him scrambling to understand human nature. He’d spent a fair amount of time in front of his reflection, like all children: making faces to better fill in the gaps of self-image. He just took the fascination a touch more seriously than some, only to become distracted to the point of mild obsession by the leaky tap in the sink.

One of his earliest games had been to catch the weak stream of drips with the end of one finger, to strain the far edge of the capacity of each droplet. Once, he had turned on the shower and stoppered the drain to watch the resultant disturbance of the surface tension, and failed to notice when the tub overflowed- to his mother's understandable frustration. Her temper was held in check, but her regard was hot and prickly and stinging, and he realised then that she didn’t know it. (Sherlock’s was the first gaze that didn't hurt, as piercing as it was. It was like looking in the mirror, until one day it wasn’t. At all.)

He wasn’t permitted to use the shower for some months afterwards. It was for the best. He would forget to soap up for the longest unless prompted, busy trying to hold his eyes open under the spray for time uncountable. Entire worlds hung shining in silver-edged spheres, he was certain.

Rain was even lovelier to watch, though the best vantage point was of below rather than safe on one side of a window pane. This might have required more negotiation if he had been more closely observed, but when his mother sent her children outside and got wrapped up in her own thoughts, it left them ample opportunity to develop their interests. He could recall being around ten and finding a clear plastic tarp to wiggle under, he and Sherlock (grass and chocolate staining his playclothes) bracing the tent up between themselves and the heavy afternoon clouds and giggling as the skies opened beyond their transparent haven.

As an adult, on an early mission before he escaped regular fieldwork, he was caught and waterboarded. It was brief, owing in large part to his tormentors feeling deeply disquieted by his reaction. In his mind, he was on his back next to the toddler version of his baby brother in their parents' garden. Outwardly, he grinned. Some people in the interrogation room found that really rather odd.

He received his first umbrella at age six. It was yellow (too yellow, frankly) with a cartoon bear carved into the wooden handle. Aside from the colour, it was the perfect shield. It was just a bit eccentric, but with weather being what it was, also arguably prudent to carry a defense against the elements. If he felt overexposed or stimulated past comfort, he could open his movable barrier. Young Mycroft always had a book or notepad to further dissuade attempts at contact. He would hold still, worrying the smooth varnish of the handle and either reading or pretending to do. At some point, the words on the page stopped having meaning beyond the shapes the letters formed, and that was enough. It was a while before he understood that the particular hue was chosen by his father because it was so easy to see, a spottable warning sign that all was not well from a small boy who would otherwise grow stiff and silent and give no notice of inner turmoil until it was too late. The yellow was a call for aid Mycroft could give no voice to. It wasn't long before it was replaced with more subdued brollies to match his tastes, as he grew better able to cope. Sherlock, digging for treasure on expedition through Mycroft’s wardrobe would come across it one day and open it, scattering dust and memories of peace as he held it aloft for inspection and announced, "It's sunny!"

Decades later, he would see this shade again in the jumper of a gentle pathologist with light caught in her smile. _Sunny_ , he would think, the younger voice of his lately troublesome sibling flitting through his mind like a bird trapped in a house. _Yes_.

Art wasn’t so bad. It was more muffled, seeing the world though second-hand vision. Even a direct copy (a photograph) gave him a focus and a subject and was somehow softer. It put him an extra step away from the view and afforded him a sought-after glimpse into other heads. His own attempts showed that he had no aptitude; he got swiftly bogged down in trying to be accurate and forgot to have fun.

Despite his failings in that department, he found himself surrounded by people with the ability to make faithful representations of reality.  Both of his brothers had the knack, and even Anthea could draw when pressed, though it rarely occurred to her to do so. Once, to celebrate some forgotten legislative victory, she had gifted him with an exploded diagram of his fountain pen. She'd laughed when he expressed his surprise at her skill. When they had a few hours to spare in some new city, she would schedule him a block of free time and arrange tickets to a gallery. Sometimes she would go along with him, though they tended towards different favourites; hers were interests of a certain aesthetic, while he liked anything that could withstand his lengthy scrutiny. When he first caught sight of Gregory Lestrade's work (doodles on the blotter and scribbles in the margins and sketches tacked to the cubicle partition in those early days when he was only a sergeant), he had another reason for his personal interest.

It was a terrible march of years before Greg finally drew Mycroft, before either of them allowed it. When he studied the impromptu portrait in the pale lemon lamplight of his sitting room, he'd felt oddly soothed. It released a tension he had been unaware of to see himself rendered to lines in this way: his own image reflected back by a loving gaze. He took center stage in this drawing, stretched in repose across the couch with his head in their mutual sweetheart's lap, but the factor that made him feel like he fit solidly in the scaffold of pencil strokes and bones was the force of emotion evident in the expression on Molly's face where she watched him. If this picture was correct (and he was assured that it was), then he had nothing to fear from being seen fully by either of these people.

In the weeks leading up to Sherlock's wedding, Molly (dispenser of paracetamol) noted that he'd had headaches after paperwork and suggested in her steady way that he should have his vision checked. His results were returned with the offer of minimal magnification, and she nodded and silently mentioned Irlen tinted lenses by leaving a copy of an annotated bibliography of research on the subject of perception and light sensitivity on his kitchen island while she fixed their dinner. When they arrived, his new readers had a decided yellow leaning to them, though darkened to a much more comfortable amber. Well, one didn't want one's glasses making a spectacle, at any rate.

(The sketch, to Gregory's everlasting chagrin, ended up in a frame on the wall in over the first landing in his stairwell. The artist spent months threatening to take it down and do a better job. Mycroft and Molly both met his protests with kisses and firm assurances that it was absolutely fine just as it was.)

**Author's Note:**

> [Here](http://irlen.com/) is the website for Irlen glasses.  
>  Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
